The Onion Pulling Zero Fucking Punches.

Almost as if Forbes is just a public relations outlet and not critical in any way...

As a 19-year-old sophomore at Stanford, Elizabeth Holmes decided to transform diagnostic medicine so she dropped out of college and used her tuition money to start her own company, Theranos. Ten years later, Holmes, pictured here holding a micro-vial, is on the cutting edge of medical technology — her new blood testing method allows hundreds of tests to be run using only a few drops of blood. And, Holmes’ methods are cheaper, faster, more accurate, and less invasive than conventional methods which often require a separate vial of blood for every test. As Holmes told Wired.com earlier this year, “I started this company because I wanted to spend my life changing our health care system. When someone you love gets really sick, most of the time when you find out, it’s too late to be able to do something about it. It’s heartbreaking… We wanted to make actionable health information accessible to people everywhere at the time it matters most. That means two things: being able to detect conditions in time to do something about them and providing access to information that can empower people to improve their lives.”

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elon musk should kill himself elon musk needs to kill himself elon musk would make society as a whole better if he killed himself now

//TIME IS TICKING.

WE ONLY HAVE A FEW DAYS UNTIL KOSA IS DETERMINED. THERE IS A HUGE AUDIENCE OF PEOPLE TRYING TO PASS THIS BILL, BUT THE INTERNET IS BIGGER!

WE NEED ALL THE SUPPORT WE CAN GET.

CALL REPRESENTATIVES, TELL FAMILY, FRIENDS, MOOTS, LITERALLY EVERYONE YOU CAN.

IF THE BILL PASSES, THE INTERNET WILL BE CHANGED AS WE KNOW IT. IT WILL NOT MATTER IF YOU ARE OUT OF THE US. MANY FANDOM SPACES ARE IN AMERICAN DOMAIN.

YOU WILL NOT BE SAFE FROM USING A DIFFERENT EMAIL, ACCOUNT, ANYTHING. STOP BELIEVING THAT. THIS BILL WANTS CONTROL AS FAR BACK AS TRACING US BACK TO NAMES, AGES, GOVERNMENT IDS AND LICENSE PLATES.

YOU WILL NOT BE SAFE BECAUSE, “OH THIS BILL CAN’T PASS IT VIOLATES THE 1ST AMENDMENT!”. THEY HAVE PASSED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BILLS. YOU WILL NOT BE SAFE BECAUSE “OH, THIS BILL HASN’T PASSED FOR 2 YEARS!” THEY ARE AGGRAVATED. THEY ARE PUSHING FOR THIS BILL.

DO NOT FORGET KOSA MERELY BECAUSE A LACK OF UPDATES. I NEED YOU TO SIGN PETITIONS, CALL REPRESENTATIVES. DONT FORGET. I WANT YOU TO MAKE AS MUCH NOISE ABOUT KOSA POSSIBLE. DO NOT. FORGET. WE HAD THE TIME TO KEEP TALKING ABOUT KOSA, AND YET WE FORGOT BECAUSE OF A LACK OF UPDATES. THAT BRIEF TIME WAS NOT A COOLDOWN PERIOD. IT WAS A TIME TO KEEP KOSA TRENDING.

STOP GOING ON TIKTOK, COMMENTING “B00ST” AND THEN CALLING IT A DAY. YES THAT HELPS, BUT YOU NEED TO DO WHAT 90% OF THESE VIDEOS WANT YOU TO DO. SIGN PETITIONS. CALL REPRESENTATIVES. THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS POST ABOUT KOSA YOURSELF.

Gardening Info *Long Read*

MORE FAMILIES ARE PLANTING FOOD FORESTS

If you’ve ever wandered back roads in a developing, tropical country, you know that many of the locals grow much of their own food. You might also have noticed that their food gardens aren’t comprised entirely of small annual vegetables planted in straight rows like ours are. They are typically wild-looking plantings of edible trees, shrubs, vines, and ground covers all mingling effortlessly together, as if Mother Nature had planted the garden according to her own design. These are literally forests of food.

Forest gardening has been the standard for millennia in many tropical regions, but it’s possible in more temperate climes as well. A British chap by the name of Robert Hart first popularized the concept among European and North American gardeners with the publication of his book Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape in the 1980s. Food forests have also figured prominently in the permaculture movement, an approach to designing agricultural systems that mimic natural ecosystems.

Why Food Forests?

Food forests are like the ultimate organic garden. Does a forest need tilling, weeding, fertilizer, or irrigation? Nope. And that’s the goal.

Because they’re mostly perennial crops, there’s no need to till. Not tilling preserves the natural soil structure, preventing the loss of topsoil and allowing all the little microbes and soil critters to do their jobs, cycling nutrients and maintaining fertility. The deep roots of trees and shrubs make them much more drought tolerant than annual vegetables, and they shade the smaller plants below, keeping everything lush and moist in a self-maintaining—in other words, a highly sustainable—system.

Step 1: CHOOSE PLANTS

The first step in establishing a food forest is to choose your plants. The largest plants will reach into the sun, so most common fruiting trees and shrubs are fair game. The smaller plants generally need to be more shade tolerant, as they will be in the under story. But you can leave sunny patches here and there—like little forest clearings—to accommodate species that need more light (though see Step 3 for a trick to make the most of the available sunlight).

Winter is the ideal time to get started, because most edible trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants can be purchased and planted while dormant, which is better for the plants—and for your bank account. That’s because at this time of year they are sold in “bare root” form—meaning without soil or a pot—which gives the roots a more natural structure and costs less for nurseries to produce. Bare root plants are typically ordered in January or February, for planting in early March, or as soon as the ground thaws in your area. Naturally, you’ll want to stick with species that are well-adapted to your region.

CANOPY: This layer is primarily for large nut trees that require full sun throughout the day, such as pecans, walnuts, and chestnuts, all of which mature to a height of 50 feet or more.

UNDER STORY TREES: This layer is for smaller nut trees, like filberts, and the majority of fruit trees. The most shade tolerant fruit trees include native North American species like black mulberry, American persimmon and pawpaw, though many other fruit trees will produce a respectable crop in partial shade.

Vines: Grapes, kiwis, and passion fruit are the most well-known edible vines, though there are many other more obscure specimens to consider, some of which are quite shade tolerant, such as akebia (edible fruit), chayote (a perennial squash), and groundnuts (perennial root crop). Kolomitka kiwi, a close relative of the fuzzy kiwis found in supermarkets, is among the most shade-tolerant vines.

SHRUBS: A large number of fruiting shrubs thrive in partial shade, including gooseberries, currants, service berries, huckleberry, elderberry, aronia, and honey berry, along with the “super foods” sea berry and goji. Blackberry and Blueberry bushes will work well here in the U.S.

HERBACEOUS PLANTS: This category includes not only plants commonly thought of as herbs—rosemary, thyme, oregano, lavender, mint and sage are a few of the top perennial culinary herbs to consider for your forest garden—but is a catch-all term for all leafy plants that go dormant below ground in winter and re-sprout from their roots in spring. This layer is where perennial vegetables, like artichokes, rhubarb, asparagus and “tree collards” fit in.

GROUND COVERS: These are perennial plants that spread horizontally to colonize the ground plane. Edible examples include alpine strawberries (a shade tolerant delicacy), sorrel (a French salad green), nasturtiums (has edible flowers and leaves), and watercress (requires wet soil), all of which tolerate part shade.

RHIZOSPERE: This refers to root crops. It’s a bit misleading to call it a separate layer, since the top portion of a root crop may be a vine, shrub, ground cover or herb, but it’s Hart’s way of reminding us to consider the food-producing potential of every possible ecological niche. Most common root crops are sun-loving annuals, however so you’ll have to look to more obscure species, such as the fabled Andean root vegetables oca, ulluco, yacon, and mashua, for shade-tolerant varieties.

Step 2: PREPARE THE GROUND

Choose an open, sunny location for your forest garden. It can be as small as 100 square feet—a single fruit tree and an assortment of understory plants—or multiple acres. At the larger, commercial-scale end of the spectrum, forest gardening is often referred to as agroforestry. A number of tropical crops, including coffee and chocolate, are grown commercially in this way, though commercial agroforestry is uncommon in North America (other than in the context of timber plantations).

Unlike preparing for a conventional vegetable garden, there is no need to till the earth and form it into beds in preparation for a forest garden. Instead, dig a hole for each individual plant, just as if you were planting ornamental shrubs and trees. However, if the soil quality is poor, you may wish to “top-dress” the entire planting area with several inches of compost prior to planting.

One situation in which raised beds are desirable in a food forest is where drainage is poor. But rather than make the effort to construct conventional raised beds from wood, you may opt to sculpt the earth into low, broad mounds at the location of each tree. Smaller plants may then be positioned along the slopes of the mounds. A variation on this approach is to sculpt the earth into long linear “swales,” which consist of a raised berm (to provide a well-drained planting location) and a broad, shallow ditch (to collect rainwater runoff and force it to percolate into the soil beneath the planting berm).

You will need to eliminate any weeds, grass or other existing vegetation prior to planting. This can be done manually, or by smothering them under a “sheet mulch,” a permaculture tactic in which sheets of cardboard are overlaid with several inches of mulch on top of the vegetation, starving the plants for light and causing them to compost in place. Compost may be added as a layer between the cardboard and the mulch to add extra nutrients. Permaculturists often employ sheet mulching in conjunction with swales to enhance the area prior to planting.

When you’re ready to plant, simply brush aside the mulch and cut holes in the cardboard just big enough to dig a planting hole at the location of each plant. Then slide the mulch back around the newly installed plant. Maintaining a deep mulch is the key to preventing weeds, conserving soil moisture and boosting organic matter—all things that will help your food forest be self-maintaining and self-sufficient

.

Step 3: PLANT

The next step is to arrange your plants in the landscape. Position the tallest species (i.e. the ‘canopy’ plants) at the northern end of the planting area, with progressively smaller plants toward the southern end. This way the taller plants will cast less shade on the smaller ones, especially at the beginning and end of the growing season when the days are shorter and the sun hangs lower in the sky.

Of course, truly shade tolerant plants may be interspersed throughout the understory of the forest garden. You might even consider cultivating mushrooms in the shadiest zones once the large trees have matured. Edible vines may be planted on any accessible fences, arbors, or walls, and you can also train vines up trees, just like Mother Nature does—just be sure the tree is significantly larger than the vine to avoid the tree getting smothered.

The edges of the food forest are suitable for sun-loving annual vegetables, if you wish to include them. Also, keep in mind that it takes decades for large tree to reach their mature size, so in the early years of a food forest there is ample sunlight. Plant sun-loving species in the open spaces between trees and then replace them with more shade-tolerant plants as the forest matures.

Here is the goggle doc on what to do! Even if you don’t need to live in New York, you can message the tourism board.

Something that helps

If you blurt out something that you thought would be funny but it comes across as insensitive, just quickly say, “I’m sorry, that was rude, what I meant was…”

If you say something in anger or frustration, take a breath and say, “I’m sorry, that was hurtful, let me rephrase…”

If you say something heartfelt, but it comes across as insincere or ironic, say “That sounds like I’m just saying it, but I’m being truly honest…”

If you accidentally tell the waiter “enjoy your meal” just laugh and say a quick “so sorry, my brain isn’t working today!” and you will most likely get a commiserating chuckle in return.

Most of the time, the other person will accept your apology with no harm done. Sometimes they even insist they understood what you meant the first time and clarification was not needed. At times, maybe they have a right to be upset, but it never hurts to apologize again so they know that you’re taking their feelings into account.

Repeat after me. It’s okay to be bad at conversation. Knowing how to apologize makes it easier.

Just a reminder for people who may not know, in light of protestors at UCLA being shot in the face with rubber bullets— rubber bullets are not bullets made of rubber. They are metal bullets encased in rubber.

Despite being called “non-lethal” or sometimes “less lethal”, they are well known to cause death and permanent disability.

Here’s a photo showing their size— these are actual rubber bullets used during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

Do not let them downplay the severity of what they are subjecting this students to for standing against genocide. Stay safe and stay educated.

Hot take: If you refuse to vote for Biden over his handling of Israel-Gaza, you do not get the right to protest against Trump rounding up all the POC/LGBTQ/neurodivergents and executing them.

Because you let that happen; you doomed millions of lives because Biden isn’t perfect. The Palestinians would be ashamed of you.

And funnily enough, since Trump is 1,000 more Zionist than Biden, you probably also caused their genocide, too.

Biden's approval ratings are at a historic low. When he loses, it will not be anyone's fault but his own.

No, a vote for a third party is not the same as a vote for drumpf. A vote for drumpf is a vote for drumpf. Nothing else.

Why are you not willing to do the right thing?

I need some of yall to stop blaming your own people and start actually fighting fascism instead of fucking contributing to it. We have work to do. Good god.

hey friends.

I want ya’ll to be aware of a situation going down in Tampa.

5 student activists facing up to 10 years in prison on bogus charges.

the fascists are seeking to build their capacity to crush dissent. we cannot allow them to do this unchallenged.

National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression

Drop the charges now! Defend student activists! Justice for the Tampa 5!

We are calling on all NAARPR members, chapters, and affiliates to sign & share the petition to drop the charges on the Tampa 5! Drop th

please read about all this and get involved. and reblog!! repost if you want too.